


Saintly Mary Margaret

by MiHnn



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiHnn/pseuds/MiHnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the perfect are proved to be imperfect, a judgement should not be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saintly Mary Margaret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



The coffee Mary Margaret ordered was placed gently in front of her, the steam rising slowly, swirling all around her, as she barely noticed. Ruby stared at her for a moment, this friend of hers who had been there for her on so many occasions, sitting all alone in a diner while everyone else whispered behind her back about her. 

Mary Margaret didn’t seem overly interested in the opinions of others. But then again, Ruby could see what her cool exterior really meant: she wore it like armour to protect herself from the disapproval of everyone who eyed her as the ‘Other Woman’. 

“Would you like anything else?” Ruby asked her gently after a moment. 

Mary Margaret, who had been sitting very still at the seat beside the window, looked up briefly. Sad eyes met Ruby’s gaze and held it for a moment before a sad smile accompanied it a second later. 

“I’m fine, Ruby, thank you.”

A sudden cough drew their attention. Across the space of the diner, sitting at the counter were two men who looked at Mary Margaret disapprovingly. One said something to the other, and it took a quick word from Ruby’s grandmother to tell them both off. The two men didn’t pay for their dinner, but left their half eaten meals with a grouch of an expression as they left instantly. 

Ruby shared a grateful smile with her grandmother, who immediately quirked her head to the side to gesture towards poor Mary Margaret who sat alone near the window.

Ruby sighed, a nod escaping her before she pulled off her apron and tossed it on an empty table. The diner was near closing time anyway. Her grandmother had followed the two men, closed the door after them, fixed the appropriate locks and flipped the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’. 

“We need to talk.” Ruby slipped onto the seat opposite Mary Margaret and fixed her with a meaningful look. She shared another grateful look with her grandmother as the woman quickly left the diner, putting off counting the money in the cash register just because Ruby’s friend needed some time to be helped.

Mary Margaret looked up at in surprise, as if she had forgotten that a woman dressed in red stood near her for the past few minutes. 

“What?” she asked distractedly, as if she was very much disoriented. 

Ruby sighed, moving her hand in a flippant gesture to indicate the coffee that had been placed before her friend. “The coffee is getting cold.”

“Oh.” Mary Margaret blinked as her eyes stared at Ruby for a long moment, a hint of confusion hiding in the depths of her look. Her gaze then fell onto the warm liquid, even though her eyes were unseeing. 

Ruby ducked her head so that her eyes could meet the other woman’s. “Mary Margaret?” she asked cautiously. 

She would never admit it out loud, especially to the person in question, but seeing one of the few people who had an endless supply of courage and spunk being reduced to a form of lifelessness scared Ruby. She couldn’t understand how something like this could happen. She understood that Mary Margaret had a good heart; that was something that everybody in Storybrooke knew without a shadow of a doubt. But what Ruby didn’t know—or didn’t understand—was the level of guilt that Mary Margaret placed on herself. 

She didn’t understand how someone so selfless could view herself as selfish after she had done something that Ruby was convinced that she would never do. If she had been placed in such a position, Ruby would have never walked away from a man who chose her; a man who had decided to walk away from his marriage _because_ of her. She would have embraced such a change and confidently ensured that something like that followed through. Why should three people be miserable when it can be easily reduced to one? 

She felt bad for David’s wife, really, she did. But it was clear to anyone who had eyes that David only had eyes for Mary Margaret and Mary Margaret was completely smitten by the former comatose patient. Had it been anyone else, Ruby was convinced that the town wouldn’t have cared at all about the interactions between the man, his wife, and the love of his life. But because it happened to Mary Margaret, the woman who read to the sick, taught their children, looked after their pets when they needed someone desperately, falling off the pedestal the townspeople of Storybrooke had placed her on, falling in love with a man who happened to be married was an unforgivable offence. 

Ruby vaguely wondered why it was so easy for the townspeople to forget what a good heart she has. Whenever she was in trouble, Mary Margaret was the person she went to in order to get help. And she wasn’t the only one. Bob asked her to find a job for his son, which she did. Trent told her that he had lost two of his best men for the harvest and Mary Margaret volunteered within a heartbeat. She worked alongside him, sweat on her brow, while only accepting payment in the form of a warm meal. It was maddening to remember all those instances where the people of the town asked Mary Margaret for help, or was offered it in a blink of an eye, where they accepted her and practically called her sister, only to ditch her the first chance she proved herself human. It was disgusting. 

“You’re not a bad person, you know.”

Mary Margaret kept staring out of the window as if she hadn’t heard what Ruby had said. 

“I _am_ a bad person.” Her voice was soft and almost resigned, which upset Ruby greatly.

“You’re not.” Ruby reached out a hand and gently placed it on Mary Margaret’s. “You did the right thing.” She squeezed Mary Margaret’s hand gently as she sent her a crooked, yet brilliantly wide smile. “You knew that what you and David have can break up his marriage and you walked away. _I_ would have never done something like that.”

Mary Margaret’s head dipped, her hand slipping out of Ruby’s before her head rose to meet Ruby’s confused gaze. “I didn’t stop it.”

Ruby eyed her with confusion. “Didn’t stop what?”

Mary Margaret faltered. “What David and I had… we still have it. I tried to end it, but I couldn’t.” A moment passed as they stared at each other, then Mary Margaret was out of her chair, mumbling, “Sorry,” over and over as she rushed out of the diner while the door banged shut after her. 

Ruby stared there for a moment, a slew of thoughts running through her head. It took a while before she realised that she was thinking the same thing as the townspeople. She had placed Mary Margaret on a pedestal as well; it was hard not to. But Ruby was determined that she didn’t fall from grace. 

Mary Margaret deserved to have at least one friend not judge her the way she refused to judge anyone.


End file.
